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28th September

The first recorded ‘kingdom’ of Slavs was the Samo Empire in the seventh century, which lasted only 30 years. Czechs then became part of the Moravian Empire.

In 1198 the kingdom of Bohemia was formed in the Holy Roman Empire. This is where we get the idea of ‘bohemian’ from – it was a French insult that meant ‘gypsy’, who they thought came from central Europe. Bohemia then became part of the Austrian Empire.

In 1867 the Austrian and Hungarian kingdoms joined to become the Austro-Hungarian Empire (with two kings). Hungaria owned Slovakia.

At the end of WWI the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed and the Bohemian Kingdom and Slovakia became Czechoslovakia.

In 1938 Hitler demanded control of the Sudetenland, part of Czechoslovakia. For some reason he asked Britain and France for this, rather than Czechoslovakia, and for some reason we said “Yeah sure.” A year later Hitler took the rest of Czechoslovakia. Czechs were considered Untermenschen (inferior) and were to be deported or turned into Germans. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were also killed.

Soviet troops freed Czechoslovakia, but they did take Subcarpathian Ruthenia (Czech land has the best names) for themselves on the way out. Over 2 million ethnic Germans were kicked out.

Czechoslovakia became a Communist country. In 1968 there was the Prague Spring, where they tried to be a bit liberal, but it was soon quashed because Russia invaded them.

In 1989 the Velvet (i.e., peaceful) Revolution restored democracy, and in 1992 Czechoslovakia peacefully dissolved into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The Czech Republic is famous for beautiful Prague:

Jan Svankmajer, Sigmund Freud, Franz Kafka. It has the highest density of castles in the world, and is the most eastern part of the western world.